Birding Notes

There are no more persistent singers around our woods recently than Scarlet Tanagers. One sings in the woods across the street from our house almost all day every day. He’s one of the first to sing early each morning, soon after first light, and he continues to sing throughout the day – mid morning, late morning, early afternoon, mid-afternoon. I think surely he must take some breaks, but it seems that whenever I step outside, he’s singing.

In the evenings, he’s one of the last to sing, well after the sun has gone down. He sings so constantly that it’s tempting to think he sounds hoarse from singing so much – but the hoarse, almost harsh quality is the natural voice of the Scarlet Tanager. His song of five, six or seven rough phrases is often described as sounding like a Robin with a sore throat. Even knowing that, after hearing him sing for a long time, it almost hurts to listen.

He follows a regular path along the edge of the woods and then deeper into the woods, toward a creek, and usually stays down in the foliage out of sight, but twice in the past week I’ve caught vivid glimpses. Once, he was perched in the top of a large Red Oak at the corner of our street – the same spot where I saw him earlier in the spring – and the other time he was flying from one tree to another. Both times, he looked like a tiny, clear red drop of glass against the blue sky. His black wings were visible in contrast, but didn’t show up as strikingly as the red.

I have not seen a female, only the male. Occasionally I hear the chik-burr calls, especially at twilight. This is the first year I’ve ever seen and heard Scarlet Tanagers more often around the edges of our woods than Summer Tanagers – whose calls I frequently hear, but not their song, and I’ve rarely seen one. In previous years, there’s almost always been a Summer Tanager that sings around the yard, and a pair often foraging in the trees – but not this spring. One of our neighbors, however, says he sees them often and thinks they may have nested somewhere near. That’s good to know!

About 9:30 today, a warm, sunny morning, I heard the song of an Eastern Wood-Pewee from down the street. As I listened, it came closer and closer, until it sounded as if it was in the neighbors’ yard. I walked in that direction, to our driveway, and to my amazement it flew onto a low-hanging branch of a pecan tree almost right in front of me, only about 10 feet away, like a little gray shadow coming to life. There, it gave again its clear, whistled song – pity-a-wee – wheee-oo. It perched there for three or four minutes, turning its head sharply in one direction and then in another, flying up to catch an insect once or twice and returning to the same branch, and singing several times. I was close enough to see the orange of the lower bill, and its dark tip. Its coloring was a drab gray, with blurry-white wing bars, nothing to catch the eye. But it looked alert and busy, and did not stay long. It flew back down the street in the same direction from which it had come, as if it had just come by to sing for me for a few minutes.

It’s only the second time this season I’ve heard or seen an Eastern Wood-Pewee here. But I think it must be nesting somewhere in the neighborhood, or not far away, since it’s still here at this time of June.

Around the same time this morning – a quiet, peaceful summer morning with the songs of Cicadas in the background, small orange butterflies in the lantana and a male Bluebird hunting for insects in the grass – a Scarlet Tanager, Summer Tanager, Red-eyed Vireo, Pine Warbler, Northern Parula, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Phoebe, Downy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Great-crested Flycatcher, Eastern Towhee, Cardinal, Titmouse, Goldfinch and Carolina Wren also were singing or calling – not all at once, but here and there. A Crow flew over with a Mockingbird chasing after it, rasping harshly.

This morning a Brown Thrasher was singing again, for the first time in a while. It sang from the top of a pecan tree on the edge of our yard – one of its favorite spots when it was singing so often earlier this spring. This time, though, it did not sing long.

After only two or three minutes, it flew down to the ground beside a hedge of wax myrtles and was joined there by another Brown Thrasher that I think was a female. The male picked up a leaf and flew with it up to a branch in one of the shrubs. At that point, I was distracted by something else and did not see what happened. A few minutes later, I heard the Brown Thrasher singing again, but it was singing from a low branch in an unusually soft, muted voice – the same song, but quite different from his usual style.

The species account for Brown Thrasher in Birds of North America* says that the male “also produces [a] ‘soft courtship song’ which is identical to the primary song but with drastically reduced amplitude given when a female is close by.” So our Brown Thrasher pair may be starting a new nest. I think their first nest was successful because on at least one occasion I saw three Thrashers feeding in the grass together.

*Cavitt, John F. and Carola A. Hass. 2000 Brown Thrasher (Toxostoma rufum), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.) Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

For the past six weeks, a small fracture in one foot has kept me from taking my usual daily walks – as well as from field trips and walks in the woods – so most of my birding has been restricted to around our house and yard. This morning about 8:15, I drove up to the Old Field that runs along the dead-end road just outside our subdivision. I wanted to see if the Blue Grosbeaks, Indigo Buntings, Yellow-breasted Chats and Field Sparrows had returned this spring.

When I first got out of my pickup, the traffic noise from nearby Highway 441 was so loud I didn’t think I was likely to see or hear anything but trucks, SUVs, cars and more trucks. But despite the traffic, I almost immediately heard the song of a White-eyed Vireo, then an Eastern Towhee, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and Phoebe. Three or four Mockingbirds sat quietly on a wire, but I didn’t see the Red-tailed Hawk that often sits out on one of the utility poles along the power cut that runs through the field.

Red-spotted Purple and Sleepy-orange Butterflies flew among the purple thistles that spread over several open areas of the field, the purple blooms turning into white fluffs of seeds. In the ditches and grassy areas, Queen Anne’s lace bloomed dusty white. Large areas of the field have now grown up in pines, sweet gums, chinaberrys and other trees. The more open areas are choked with thickets of privet and blackberry vines, and tall, rough grasses.

I was watching a Brown Thrasher in some privet when I heard it – the song of a Blue Grosbeak. And there he was, perched in the very top of one of the tallest trees in that part of the field – maybe a wild cherry – singing and singing. A small dark bird with a slightly crested head, he didn’t look blue at first, but I could see the rusty-orange wing bars, and the big silver beak gleamed as it caught the light and parted every time he tilted his head back to sing. For several minutes he sang from the same perch, pausing now and then to preen, lifting one wing and then the other, spreading his tail feathers. But never more than a few seconds passed before he lifted his head and sang again.

A Blue Grosbeak’s song is usually described as a long, rich, finch-like warble. In addition, what I recognize most quickly is the distinctive rhythm and the way it always crests in a certain high note roughly in the middle of the song. To me it sounds joyous, full of optimism and a sunny, persistent spirit – reflecting, as many bird songs do, the habitat in which it lives. In this case, the Blue Grosbeak is one of many plant and animal species that colonize rough, abused places like old fields and help bring them back to life.

Finally, he flew to another treetop only a few yards away, again perching in the very top, and continued to sing and preen for several more minutes, and from this different angle the blue of his back ran like a wide ribbon between the darker wings. At the same time, a Gray Catbird was singing and mewing from somewhere deep in the foliage of a chinaberry tree. I listened also for the sharp, metallic tink that might be a female Grosbeak calling, but I didn’t see or hear one.

After walking further along the field and finding no buntings, no field sparrows, no chats, I had just about decided to be happy to have found the Grosbeak when I saw a small dark ball hurtle across the road into the dense privet thickets along the power cut. I thought it was only wishful thinking when I said, “Indigo Bunting” – but then I heard its bright, clear sweet-sweet, chew-chew, sweet-sweet song.

I heard no Field Sparrow and no Yellow-breasted Chat, but was only there for about 45 minutes on one rather noisy-traffic morning. So I wouldn’t say for sure. And it was certainly encouraging to find both Blue Grosbeak and Indigo Bunting singing, and a good number of other bird species active. A Robin and one Mockingbird were singing, and I also saw or heard Chickadees, Titmice, Carolina Wren, Cardinals, Chimney Swifts, Goldfinch, Brown-headed Cowbird, Mourning Doves, two Black Vultures and one Turkey Vulture soaring, and a House Finch family feeding in the purple thistles.

At 7:30 this morning, Summer Tanagers called a soft, repeated pik-a-tuk to each other near the edge of the woods, and Red-eyed Vireo, Scarlet Tanager, Pine Warbler, Northern Parula, Phoebe, Eastern Towhee, Cardinal, Carolina Wren, Tufted Titmouse, and House Finch sang. A family of Brown-headed Nuthatches squeaked in the pines. A Red-bellied Woodpecker’s churrrr sounded like a musical purr. A pair of Downy Woodpeckers foraged quietly in the oaks, and a Great-crested Flycatcher called its hoarse whreep from down near the creek. A male Bluebird perched in the low branches of yard trees and swept down to the grass for caterpillars or worms. A Chipping Sparrow sang its long dry trill from somewhere down the street. And for the first time this season I heard the harsh, loud songs of a few early-rising Cicadas.

It was a beautiful morning, with a sky as blue as the Bluebird’s wings and small white patchy clouds. From not far inside the woods, I heard a Red-eyed Vireo’s whining nyaanh! calls sharply repeated, and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher’s spee! I was searching the trees to see if I could find the Vireo when a large, vividly colored Red-shouldered Hawk flew suddenly, quietly out of the trees and perched on a low limb in full view. Two small birds flew right behind it, fussing and darting at it from different directions. The Hawk’s broad breast was rufous-red, its head dark brown and its wings, seen from the front, dark brown flecked with white. It remained on the branch for less than two minutes, but made such a striking picture against the gray and green of the woods that the image still seems bright. When it flew, with both small birds in pursuit – I don’t know for sure if they were Vireos or Gnatcatchers or something else because I was focused on the Hawk – it flared its black and white striped tail, spread its wings and flew along the edge of the woods and back into the trees, still low. It probably didn’t go far, but far enough to be out of sight.

We’ve seen a Red-shouldered Hawk several times recently, so I think it’s often around, and often low among the lower branches of the trees, quiet, well-screened, and not easy to see unless it moves or small birds discover it and start alarm calls.

Although it seems to me that we have fewer neotropical migrants in our woods this spring than we’ve had in the past, it seems to be a good year for Scarlet Tanagers here. I’ve caught only one brief glimpse of the male’s brilliant red and black plumage, and have not seen a female at all, but their songs and calls are so distinctive and familiar that they’ve been one of the most characteristic parts of the scene around our house through all of May and into early June.

At least one, and maybe a pair, continues to sing and call in the woods near the creek, and also – this year for the first time – a Scarlet Tanager has been singing every day from a different direction, across the street from our house, along the edge of the woods that slope down to a different creek there. It’s one of the earliest singers every morning, and it seems to make its way along a path through these trees repeatedly throughout the morning. It sings most often from the highest parts of the trees – sweet gums and water oaks, mostly – but stays hidden in the dense green leaves.

In the evenings, it sings from a large, magnificent red oak tree down the street and toward the west, on the edge of the woods there. I once saw it singing there in the early morning, but in the evenings, it sings late, and the tree is silhouetted against the orange light of the horizon after the sun has gone down.

Except for that one time, I haven’t been able to see the bird singing, but I also hear the crisp CHIK-brrr calls. I don’t know for sure if I’m hearing one bird or two. It may be just a male, or a pair singing and calling back and forth to each other. While the Scarlet Tanager’s song is not particularly pretty, its call is alluring and one of my favorite sounds in the summer woods.

For the past several days, the whistle and jingle of a pair of Brown-headed Cowbirds has been common around our yard, and I’ve seen the pair several times, including at the birdbath. They’re an unwelcome presence, and their dark coloring – the males are black with brown heads – encourages me to think of them as sinister. But there’s one question about Brown-headed Cowbirds that intrigues me.

Brown-headed Cowbirds are brood parasites. They do not make nests of their own. They lay their eggs in the nests of other species – such as Yellow Warblers, Red-eyed Vireos, Eastern Phoebes, and more than 200 other host species, including some whose populations are in serious decline. The eggs of a Brown-headed Cowbird are incubated by the host species and the young are fed along with the young of the host species. In most cases, the Brown-headed Cowbirds are larger and fed more often, so the young of the host species may fail to survive.

Once they leave the nest, Brown-headed Cowbird juveniles continue to be fed by the host species, apparently until they are old enough to become independent and feed on their own.

So my question is: How does a Brown-headed Cowbird know it’s a cowbird? If it’s hatched, fed and raised by Red-eyed Vireos, why doesn’t it grow up to behave like a Red-eyed Vireo? When and how does it discover it’s a Brown-headed Cowbird?

In late summer and early fall, Brown-headed Cowbirds begin to gather in large flocks, so by that time, the young have somehow figured out where they belong. It’s sort of the ugly duckling story in real life, with a few unpleasant twists.

I’ve so far failed to find an answer to the question of how this actually works, but in the process of looking, have been somewhat surprised to find accounts of Brown-headed Cowbirds’ behavior and natural history much more interesting and more complex than I had expected – and ended up spending far more time on it than I meant to, and feeling considerably less antagonistic toward them than when I started.

While parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds is generally condemned as sneaky and especially harmful to some declining songbird species, I think it’s worth remembering that habitat loss, fragmentation and degradation are the fundamental problems – and we’re the ones who created that situation and who continue to make it worse. We’re the ones who created the kind of habitat in which Brown-headed Cowbirds thrive and many other songbird species suffer.

I still don’t like having Brown-headed Cowbirds around, but I’m not sure it’s fair to blame them.

Last week for several days, a Yellow-throated Vireo sang every day all around the edges of our woods and in the oaks and pecan trees close to the house. I was happy to hear its burry, musical series of phrases because I’d just about given up hope of having one return this spring. Usually, it’s one of the earlier migrants to return, and it’s common around the edges of our woods throughout the summer, and fairly easy to locate and see. But not this year.

Rather uncharacteristically, this one stayed high in the tops of trees, where it was very difficult to see. Once I got a brief glimpse as it flew from the top of a pine to a sweet gum. The second time, I heard it singing in the topmost branches of a large pecan tree, and saw a bright yellow spot shining out from the dense green leaves. Before I could lift the binoculars, it had ducked back into the leaves, so I never got a really good look at its familiar bright yellow throat and breast, and yellow “spectacles” around its eyes. Still, the song was welcome, and knowing it was here, even if I couldn’t see it, made the woods feel more nearly complete for a while. But now it seems to have traveled on, and I haven’t heard its song since May 21.

While its relative, the Red-eyed Vireo, sings in a cool, smooth voice of the deep woods, vines, and shady places, a Yellow-throated Vireo sings a somewhat earthier, rough-edged song, reflecting the forest-edge habitat it prefers, where weeds, grasses, shrubs and small trees meet the denser woods. Though it’s associated with this kind of edge habitat, a Yellow-throated Vireo apparently needs an extensive stand of deeper forest, too. Studies have shown that it requires large areas of contiguous forest, as well as the edge habitat, in order to be successful in breeding.

On this Memorial Day weekend, traditionally marking the beginning of summer, an Eastern Wood-pewee made it official. Its lazy, seductive whee-oo, pee-a-wee – whee-oo arrived this afternoon in a back-yard scene of warm sun, pleasant breezes, blue sky with white clouds, and green trees all around the edge of the woods, fresh from recent rains. He stayed for several minutes, singing and hunting from the low branches of pines at the edge of the woods, just a little gray bird, but a song that’s so much a part of summer in our woodlands that they wouldn’t be the same without it.

The other sounds were more subdued, like background music. An Acadian Flycatcher sang tse-wheet from down along the creek, a pair of Summer Tanagers called pik-a-tuk softly as they moved through the leaves of the oaks, a Red-eyed Vireo chanted fast and nonstop way down in the woods, a Great Crested Flycatcher called its deep, hoarse whreep, a Pine Warbler sang a loose, warbling trill, and a Chipping Sparrow gave a long, dry, monotone trill from a shrub in the front yard. Chimney Swifts twittered overhead. One female Ruby-throated Hummingbird hummed between the feeder and a perch on a pine branch. A green anole ran along the rail of the deck, stopping to blow up its pink throat several times. Carpenter bees, tiger swallowtails and paper wasps flew in and out of the sun. Two or three juvenile Bluebirds begged for food from the parents in trees around the back yard, and juvenile Cardinals, Titmice, Carolina Wrens and Downy Woodpeckers also begged insistently.

It was a perfect afternoon to be lazy, to sit on the deck in the shade of the oaks with a book, and drift off to sleep listening to the Pewee’s whee-oo.

Although I haven’t heard the song of a Summer Tanager as often this spring as usual – and I’ve missed it – yesterday morning I saw a pair of Summer Tanagers in the leaves of a pecan tree near our driveway, and this morning saw them again in the white oaks just behind the house. Both times they were calling to each other, with their calls overlapping, and the all-red male seemed to be following the female through the trees. I got an especially good look at the female as she paused among the leaves of an oak. Her plumage was a very attractive dusky-orange in color, with darker wings. She looked much more orange than most female Summer Tanagers I’ve seen before.